As I said earlier, I'm also skeptical of many ancient histories. Even the most serious Roman historians (most like their modern counterparts) would write stuff down just because some guy they met who happened to be in the area of the event they're chronicling--- sometimes centuries later-- told them so. With regards to non-religious histories (which I think is "within reason"), I don't mind going with what we have because that's all there is, but I do mind that a lot of educated people don't admit that much of it could easily be crap. A lot of crazy things about Caligula and Nero that are widely accepted as fact, for example, are most likely just libelous propaganda, and those come from their (near) contemporaries.

I mean more in terms of priests living celibate lifestyles (because they believe that is how Jesus lived) and young people being told how sex is wrong and so on. The Pope often rants about how bad condoms are and whatnot. Protestants are fine with contraception, Catholics behave in a far more old school rigid way of doing things.
Part of the problem with the issue of child abuse in the church comes from not being able to handle the celibacy lifestyle, if this new evidence is true maybe priests wouldn't end up like that because they would then have to change to be more like Jesus and be married.

I'm not sure how "something happened around that time frame" is proof, particularly given there was half a dozen messiah claimants that century. And some of the others have better evidence for having existed from contemporary sources than Jesus does.

Part of the problem with the issue of child abuse in the church comes from not being able to handle the celibacy lifestyle, if this new evidence is true maybe priests wouldn't end up like that because they would then have to change to be more like Jesus and be married.

The attempt to refrain from sex turns people into child molesters? That makes no sense at all. If that were true, you'd see an increase in child molesting among every sector of the non-sexually-active population, including young people waiting for marriage, elderly widows and widowers, and military spouses stationed far away from their significant others.

People don't just give up sex and then suddenly start getting urges to molest kids. They start with an attraction to children, and then choose jobs that give them access to kids, including positions within the clergy of many faiths.

The scandal within the Catholic Church was not that more priests than Protestant clergy were molesting children. The problem was that superiors within the church were covering the abuse up, which allowed the most prolific of abusers to have "careers" spanning decades, and thus many more victims than they should have had.

I'm not sure how "something happened around that time frame" is proof, particularly given there was half a dozen messiah claimants that century. And some of the others have better evidence for having existed from contemporary sources than Jesus does.

Well, no, I don't think that's the argument. I think it's more that there is very little reason to suspect the person in question never existed. There is generally poor documentary evidence of the existence of most people from that era. As you point out, neither the general story of "messiah claimant" nor the broader concept of an itinerant religious teacher is not terribly unusual. We also know that there are he has connections claimed to figures we are fairly comfortably saying existed. On what basis would one then conclude that he didn't?

Part of the problem with the issue of child abuse in the church comes from not being able to handle the celibacy lifestyle, if this new evidence is true maybe priests wouldn't end up like that because they would then have to change to be more like Jesus and be married.

The attempt to refrain from sex turns people into child molesters? That makes no sense at all. If that were true, you'd see an increase in child molesting among every sector of the non-sexually-active population, including young people waiting for marriage, elderly widows and widowers, and military spouses stationed far away from their significant others.

Young people & old couples have each other, who do unmarried priests have? (I think part of the problem with more young people having kids is because when you forbid young people to do things they are more likely to do them) It's just them & the boys they see regularly, it's not difficult for overwhelming urges to manifest in a way where they can use their position of authority to do something they shouldn't be doing. It's the same reason they say men in the navy or other army divisions resort to homosexuality, they might not always have been gay but they end up alone for a long time with no-one but other members of their own gender and they have needs. Many people are too weak to suppress those needs. I've seen situations where people who had needs that weren't met resort to attempted sexual assaults and whatnot, it wasn't becaue they were messed up people it's because they allowed their desire to overwhelm them and then lost control. For one it's one moment of madness they may always regret, but some people are weak and ruled by their urges at times.
Yes the church itself allowed it to go on too long, but I'm willing to bet if more of the priests involved in child-abuse scandals had been married or allowed to have relationships then less of it would have happened.

I'm sure there are elderly people who have done things they shouldn't have (many priests aren't exactly young). I would have thought with most old people it was lack of desire anyway due to being older and not as able. At a certain point in life it seems many people just stop having sex, either because they can't or because they no longer have the desire they used to have. It's the same in the natural world, older members of any species refrain from reproductive acts and seem to have no interest in trying anymore.

Obviously some people are messed up and just have nasty desires, but suppressing natural needs is not healthy and can & does cause problems.

That makes no sense at all. If that were true, you'd see an increase in child molesting among every sector of the non-sexually-active population, including young people waiting for marriage [to have sex]

Young people [. . . ] have each other

Step up your reading.

Ritchie said:

It's the same reason they say men in the navy or other army divisions resort to homosexuality, they might not always have been gay but they end up alone for a long time with no-one but other members of their own gender and they have needs. Many people are too weak to suppress those needs. I've seen situations where people who had needs that weren't met resort to attempted sexual assaults and whatnot, it wasn't becaue they were messed up people it's because they allowed their desire to overwhelm them and then lost control.

A. Most people would now disagree that people can get "turned" gay by circumstances

Jesus being married should hopefully lead to Catholics becomming more like Protestants, who from what I've seen tend to be far less restrictive in their interpretation of Christianity. That is beneficial to all, not only because it might reduce the conflicts that two different sides of the same damn religion seem to keep having with each other.

Rape can be about a lot of things, people on drugs who rob and attack people aren't always nutcases they are sometimes people who have let addiction take over them and do away with their morals.

I mean more in terms of priests living celibate lifestyles (because they believe that is how Jesus lived)

Maybe, maybe not. The fact that Jesus was married I don't think would change any disciplines the Latin Church has, the fact that Jesus was believed not to be married at the start certainly didn't change the fact that the Church had a universally married priesthood for about the first 1000 years, which only changed in response to the wave of demand that clergy be celibate by the rest of the faithful(Monasticism was having a surge of popularity at the time) and to keep Church property from being lost to inheritors. If anything is to change discipline it'll probably the decline in vocations. Deacons( which can be married) are rising in numbers, which might prompt the Curia to see that there are many men wishing to serve the church through ordination but are inhibited by the discipline of celibacy.

Part of the problem with the issue of child abuse in the church comes from not being able to handle the celibacy lifestyle, if this new evidence is true maybe priests wouldn't end up like that because they would then have to change to be more like Jesus and be married.

I would disagree, as someone else already said, why children? If a sexually healthy man, who truly couldn't stay true to his vows. Why wouldn't he be trying to frisk up his adult female(or male, I suppose) parishioners?

I think the Pedophilia problem was a result of the type of person the priesthood might attract, lack of good strong formation, the need for better evaluation, the zeitgeist of the time after the reforms in 60's and (most importantly in my mind) the cowardice on the part of the Bishops that rather of taking on the problem head on would rather save face and shuffle around the offending members.

The Catholic church is about as far out of step with the real world about sex as anyone ever could be. They should stop caring so much about the things they care about and start caring about the things they don't seem to care about (ie. stop caring about birth control and start caring about the fact that they systematically carried on a program of non-stop child abuse for decades). But this "revelation" about Christ having a wife won't change anything; they've been contradicting the teachings of Christ for years in the upper echelons. Christ could walk into the Vatican (or a lot of protestant churches) today and He'd get laughed out of the building or worse, whether he had a wife on his arm or not.

Like I said in my previous post, yes I'll agree that part of the problem is the failure of leadership to act and stop. But to insinuate that it was "systematically carried" out with intention of directly inflicting harm, then you're just exaggerating. And "decades"? Really? From what I've read, the majority of abuse cases are from the 70's and 80's. And yes, the Church has taken steps to do things to prevent future occurrences and repay victims, just because it's also vocal about other causes, doesn't mean it hasn't. I suppose you can pat your head and rub your stomach at the same time too, right?

I so don't give a kriff.
The Bible is anyway only an abritary collection of letters that people liked and all they didnt like the threw out.

Question: who is "they"?

What amuses me about this "evidence" re: the thread topic, is that......
......it's from the flippin' FOURTH CENTURY . Did you hear that? NOT from the FIRST century AD, or even the Second or the Third, but the Fourth. On the same criteria/basis - appealing to texts from centuries further removed from the 'first generation' - texts from later centuries which claim that Jesus didn't die/was not crucified* should also be touted as "new evidence" that Jesus was never crucified or killed*.

*and as such, was either 'translated' directly to heaven without dying like Elijah or Enoch, or as one version has it, he 'escaped' the crucifixion and died as an 'old man' ('old' meaning 60 or older).

Like I said in my previous post, yes I'll agree that part of the problem is the failure of leadership to act and stop. But to insinuate that it was "systematically carried" out with intention of directly inflicting harm, then you're just exaggerating. And "decades"? Really? From what I've read, the majority of abuse cases are from the 70's and 80's. And yes, the Church has taken steps to do things to prevent future occurrences and repay victims, just because it's also vocal about other causes, doesn't mean it hasn't. I suppose you can pat your head and rub your stomach at the same time too, right?

With liberals and the liberal paradigm, it's all about 'exaggeration', baby....Liberal 'scholarship': A FOURTH century text claiming that Jesus had a wife is "evidence" that he did, but a text from that VERY SAME CENTURY that says that he did not die or at least was NEVER killed* is somehow NOT also 'evidence' that he was never killed or crucified. Go figure.

*ascends directly to heaven like Elijah or Enoch without dying, or dies as an 'old man' in Tibet/Nepal/India/Morocco (or whatever the latest liberal hipster 'dream' country is these days).

A quick blurp on the news today mentioned that one person/expert says the papyrus is legit but what is written on it looks like a hoax as it seemed to be a modern translation of old language rather than the old language, or something to that affect.